Vehicle battery current sensing system

ABSTRACT

A current sensing system, comprising at least one magnetic tunnel junction device placed adjacent to a current carrying conductor electrically connected to a battery of a vehicle. The magnetic tunnel junction device is configured to measure a magnetic field around the conductor. A monitoring device is operatively connected to the magnetic tunnel junction device, wherein the monitoring device is configured to receive the magnetic field measurement and determine an estimate of the current flowing through the conductor.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is related to and claims the priority benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/429,181, filed Dec. 2, 2016, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety into this disclosure.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present application relates to current sensing systems, and more specifically, to a non-invasive vehicle battery current sensing system.

BACKGROUND

In recent years, electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid-electric vehicles (HEVs) have entered a new era of much greater consumer acceptance. Compared to gasoline-powered cars, the reduced dependence on oil and lower emissions make them an attractive choice for the future of the transportation industry. The electric power in an EV is provided by a large series/parallel interconnection of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. To ensure reliable and efficient operation of the batteries and early fault diagnosis, it is essential to have a simplified solution for predicting the health of various sub-systems in the vehicle. While, on one hand, the leakage current (a few milliamperes) between parallel connected batteries can point to inefficient impedance matching, on the other hand, a sharp spike in current (a few 100s of Amperes) through the wires can be an indication of a short-circuit path requiring immediate user attention. Hence, it is critical to have a unified solution which can non-invasively measure both DC and AC currents over a wide-range with a high-resolution.

There are several current measurement techniques proposed for EV/HEV applications each with their own strengths and weaknesses. The shunt method is one of the most rudimentary methods of measuring the current where the voltage drop across a resistor in series with the battery is used to calculate the current. Companies such as Texas Instruments and SENDYNE have proposed shunt sensor designs for automotive applications with galvanic isolation between the processing unit and the current sensing circuit. However the shunt implementation is invasive and result in significant power loss during high current operation. Hall Effect sensors are also popular in current measurement applications owing to their low cost and the galvanic isolation they provide. However these sensors are very sensitive magnetic fields and can be easily affected by stray fields inducing significant errors in small current measurements. Hall Effect sensors designed to measure small currents (<10 A) accurately must be shielded from stray fields and are invasive. Current transformers and Rogowski coils are current transducers that can operate in a wide frequency range. These devices are non-invasive, but can only measure AC currents, and hence cannot be used in EV/HEV applications. Another non-invasive technology for current measurement is the flux-gate current sensor. This sensor can measure down to low currents (˜50 mA) with a good dynamic range. However, flux-gate current sensors can be costly and bulky due to their complex magnetics and can have high self-heating due to large quiescent currents. Therefore, improvements are needed in the field.

SUMMARY

According to one aspect, the present disclosure provides a non-invasive current sensor comprising a TMR magnetic-field sensor, which utilizes a Tunnel Magnetoresistance (TMR) effect in a Magnetic Tunnel Junction (MTJ) to generate a linear differential-output voltage proportional to the magnetic field perpendicular to its package. An MTJ consists of a thin insulator sandwiched between two ferromagnets. The direction of the two magnetizations of the ferromagnetic films can be changed by an external magnetic field. If the magnetizations are in a parallel orientation it is more likely that electrons will tunnel through the insulating film than if they are in the oppositional (antiparallel) orientation. Hence as the orientation of the ferromagnetic layers change the effective resistance across the device would also change. Consequently, such a junction can be smoothly transitioned across various states of resistance through the application of an external magnetic field. When installed on a current-carrying conductor of an electric vehicle, the presently disclosed current sensor enables measurement of currents ranging 10 mA-150 A with a resolution of 10 mA.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the following description and drawings, identical reference numerals have been used, where possible, to designate identical features that are common to the drawings.

FIG. 1(a) shows a TMR magnetic field sensor according to one embodiment.

FIG. 1(b) shows a schematic of the sensor of FIG. 1(a) according to one embodiment.

FIG. 1(c) shows the response of an example TMR magnetic field sensor to an applied magnetic field in the range of +−50 Oe when the TMR2905 is biased at 1V.

FIG. 2 shows a differential sensor arrangement according to one embodiment.

FIG. 3 shows an example system diagram incorporating the sensors of FIG. 1(a).

FIG. 4 shows the frequency response of the analog band-pass filter using R₁=82Ω, R₂=200KΩ, C₁=C₂=1 nF.

FIG. 5 shows a process for sensing current through a conductor using the sensor of FIG. 1(c) according to one embodiment.

FIG. 6 shows an example current sensing system for mounting the sensors of FIG. 1(c) according to one embodiment.

The attached drawings are for purposes of illustration and are not necessarily to scale

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, some aspects will be described in terms that would ordinarily be implemented as software programs. Those skilled in the art will readily recognize that the equivalent of such software can also be constructed in hardware, firmware, or micro-code. Because data-manipulation algorithms and systems are well known, the present description will be directed in particular to algorithms and systems forming part of, or cooperating more directly with, systems and methods described herein. Other aspects of such algorithms and systems, and hardware or software for producing and otherwise processing the signals involved therewith, not specifically shown or described herein, are selected from such systems, algorithms, components, and elements known in the art. Given the systems and methods as described herein, software not specifically shown, suggested, or described herein that is useful for implementation of any aspect is conventional and within the ordinary skill in such arts.

FIG. 1(a) shows an example of a TMR magnetic field sensor 102 which is used as a current sensor according to one embodiment. FIG. 1(b) shows the associated component schematic. As shown, the TMR may be implemented as a push-pull Wheatstone bridge configuration of four unshielded MTJ elements 104 which act as magnetic-field dependent variable resistors as shown in FIG. 1 (b). The push-pull design provides a highly sensitive differential output that is linearly proportional to the magnetic field applied perpendicular to the surface of the sensor package (along z-axis) as shown in FIG. 1 (a). FIG. 1 (c) shows the response of the TMR (a TMR 2905 from Multidimension Technology Co., Ltd. in the illustrated example) to an applied magnetic field in the range of +−50 Oe when the TMR2905 is biased at 1V.

To further improve the sensitivity of the TMR sensor 102, a high-amplification of the sensor output is needed. Experiments reveal that V₁≠V₂ of the sensor even under the absence of the magnetic field, i.e. there is an inherent offset in the differential-voltage. This calls for an efficient offset-cancellation methodology, so that the differential voltage actually resulting from the external magnetic field can be accurately measured. Further, for reliable and low-resolution current sensing, several noise-cancellation procedures are employed both at analog and digital frontends. In one embodiment, to cancel any common-mode noise and interfering magnetic field, a differential arrangement of two of the sensors 102 is provided as shown in FIG. 2. As shown, the sensors 102 are placed 180° apart on a circular current carrying conductor 110 (with insulation 112) to enable differential sensing of the magnetic field 108 produced by current in the conductor 110 and efficient common-mode noise cancellation of the interfering external magnetic field 106. The sensors 102 may be also mounted against a substrate 114 (e.g., a metal free PCB board) as shown to maintain their position relative to the conductor 110.

Assuming that the magnetic-field due to the current-carrying conductor 110, at the location of the sensor 102, is B_(IN), and the total external field is B_(ext) respectively, then the magnetic field measured by each sensor can be written as:

S _(1,input) =B _(IN) +B _(ext)

S _(2,input) =−B _(IN) +B _(ext)

The output of the two TMR sensors with the applied magnetic field can be written as:

S _(1,output)=(B _(IN) +B _(ext))C ₁

S _(2,output)=(−B _(IN) +B _(ext))C ₂

Here, C₁ and C₂ incorporates the sensitivities of the two TMR sensors and the gains of the analog front end. If the system is perfectly symmetrical the values C₁ & C₂ will be identical giving a differential output

${{\Delta \; {S\_}} = {{S_{1,{output}} - S_{2,{output}}} = {{2{CB}_{IN}} = {2{C\left( \frac{\mu_{0}I_{IN}}{2\pi \; r} \right)}}}}},{{{where}\mspace{14mu} C_{1}} = {C_{2} = C}}$ $\begin{matrix} {\mspace{76mu} {{A\; \Delta \; {S\_}} = I_{IN}}} & (1) \end{matrix}$

Hence, the differential measurement rejects common mode noise, and stray fields (including Earth's magnetic field).

FIG. 3 shows an example architecture of the current sensing system 300 according to one embodiment. The heart of sensing mechanism includes a sensor 102 (e.g., TMR2905 magnetic-field sensor) placed in close proximity to the current-carrying conductor 110.

This section demonstrates an exemplary implementation of the above stated method for non-invasive, high-resolution sensing of DC and AC currents. FIG. 3 shows the experimental setup for each of the top and bottom sensors 102. Both top and bottom sensors 102 have the same architecture separately, except for the parallel orientation of sensor's z-axis for efficient common-mode noise cancellation, as described above (FIG. 2.). For simplicity, here we describe the current sensing mechanism for DC currents. The residual offset voltage in each of the top and bottom TMR sensors is cancelled as follows.

Assume that the offset between V₊ and V⁻ is positive ΔV (ΔV=V₊−V⁻). We up-convert the DC V₊ and V⁻ to 32.768 KHz by using analog Single-Pole Double Throw (SPDT) switches driven by 32.768 KHz crystal. FIG. 3 shows a situation where bottom switches in both SPDT switches establish the connection of 3.3V to the supply of TMR sensor, and V₊ output of the sensor to the input of the band-pass filter. In the next phase, the DAC-output connects to the input of the band-pass filter, thereby resulting in a square-wave (with rail-to-rail swing of ΔV) at the input of band-pass filter. We choose multiple-feedback topology for the band-pass filter, centered at 32.768 KHz (f₀), to realize a high-Q filter, thereby minimizing flicker noise from op-amp while also rejecting undesirable high-frequency noise components. For high-resolution current detection, the amplification ratio is set to ˜450. FIG. 4 shows the frequency response of the analog band-pass filter using R₁=82Ω, R₂=200KΩ, C₁=C₂=1 nF.

The resulting sine-wave at filter output is fed to 12-bit ADC operating at 327.68 KHz (f_(s)=10f₀). The residual offset voltage, after amplification by ˜450×, saturates the op-amp output. The DAC's output voltage is increased/decreased until V⁻ becomes close to V₊, i.e. until the offset is reduced sufficiently enough to result in a low-amplitude unsaturated sine-wave at filter output. Now, any change in V₊−V⁻, due to external magnetic field, can be easily sensed by detecting the change in sine-wave amplitude from its previous value.

To estimate the current flowing through the wire, we subtract the sampled values from the two oppositely placed sensors to get a differential reading, thereby rejecting any common-mode noise, as described in previous section. The resulting differential sine-wave is cross-correlated with an internally generated and stored digital sine-wave of exactly same f₀ and f_(s). The equations governing the optimal detection of the amplitude of differential sine-wave are as follows:

$a = {\sum\limits_{1}^{N}{{x\lbrack n\rbrack}{\sin \left( {2\pi \frac{f_{o}}{f_{s}}n} \right)}}}$ $b = {\sum\limits_{1}^{N}{{x\lbrack n\rbrack}{\cos \left( {2\pi \frac{f_{o}}{f_{s}}n} \right)}}}$ ${y = \sqrt{a^{2} + b^{2}}},$

where f₀ is the sine-wave frequency (32.768 KHz), f_(s) is the sampling frequency, N is the total number of samples in a computation. y gives the estimate of the amplitude which linearly relates to the current flowing through the wire.

A flowchart describing the computational steps in the above example embodiment is shown in FIG. 5. The process starts when the amplitude of the sine-wave through the analog-to-digital converter is read. Next, the system checks to see if the amplitude is saturated. If it is, the system increases or decreases the DAC analog output (e.g., about 3.3V) and rechecks the amplitude for saturation. Once an acceptable output is reached (non-saturation), the system cross-correlates the captured since wave with internally stored sine-wayve to estimate the amplitude. The amplitude is then used to determine the current flowing through the conductor 110 since the current linearly depends on the detected amplitude. The current may then be displayed or otherwise received by the vehicle control system to take appropriate remedial measures.

FIG. 6 shows one example implementation which includes two housing portions, each with a TMR sensor 102 embedded therein to allow the two sensors 102 to be mounted 180 degrees apart on a conductor wire.

In certain embodiments, four sensors 102 may be used, with two sensors on each side of the conductor, wherein the two sensors on one side are mounted orthogonal to each other. The interference can be further cancelled by using a correlation amoung the measured outputs of the four sensors.

The sensors 102 and other components recited herein may include or be connected to one or more computer processors and memory which are communicatively connected and programmed to perform the data processing and control functionality recited herein. The program code includes computer program instructions that can be loaded into the processor, and that, when loaded into processor cause functions, acts, or operational steps of various aspects herein to be performed by the processor. Computer program code for carrying out operations for various aspects described herein can be written in any combination of one or more programming language(s), and can be loaded into memory for execution. The processors and memory may further be communicatively connected to external devices via a wired or wireless computer network for sending and receiving data.

The invention is inclusive of combinations of the aspects described herein. References to “a particular aspect” and the like refer to features that are present in at least one aspect of the invention. Separate references to “an aspect” (or “embodiment”) or “particular aspects” or the like do not necessarily refer to the same aspect or aspects; however, such aspects are not mutually exclusive, unless so indicated or as are readily apparent to one of skill in the art. The use of singular or plural in referring to “method” or “methods” and the like is not limiting. The word “or” is used in this disclosure in a non-exclusive sense, unless otherwise explicitly noted.

The invention has been described in detail with particular reference to certain preferred aspects thereof, but it will be understood that variations, combinations, and modifications can be effected by a person of ordinary skill in the art within the spirit and scope of the invention. 

1. A current sensing system, comprising: at least one magnetic tunnel junction device placed adjacent to a current carrying conductor electrically connected to a battery of a vehicle, the magnetic tunnel junction device configured to measure a magnetic field around the conductor; and; at least one monitoring device operatively connected to the magnetic tunnel junction device, wherein the monitoring device is configured to receive said magnetic field measurement and determine an estimate of current flowing through the conductor based on the magnetic field measurement.
 2. The current sensing system of claim 1, comprising two magnetic tunnel junction devices mounted 180 degrees apart on the conductor, wherein the monitoring device uses the difference or sum of the two readings to cancel out external field noise.
 3. The current sensing system of claim 2, further comprising a switching unit connected to the output of the two magnetic tunnel junction devices to up-convert or down-convert the output to a higher frequency than the frequency of the two magnetic tunnel junction devices.
 4. The current sensing system of claim 1, comprising four sensors, wherein two sensors are mounted on each side of the conductor, wherein the two sensors on each side are mounted orthogonal to each other.
 5. The current sensing system of claim 4, wherein the outputs of the four sensors are correlated to cancel external magnetic field interference.
 6. The current sensing system of claim 1, further comprising a wireless transmitter unit connected to the monitoring device, wherein the transmitter unit transmits data representing the measured current value to a vehicle monitoring system. 